


Reevaluations

by LauraDoloresIssum



Series: Dying Light [6]
Category: Dying Light (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 13:00:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19441960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LauraDoloresIssum/pseuds/LauraDoloresIssum
Summary: As new information comes to light, the Tower's leadership make bold plans. Kyle and Crane have a sobering conversation.





	Reevaluations

Crane had spread a tarp in the waterlogged ditch and set up camp there. He had put on his gas mask because the smell of the fetid water was awful. His clothes were smeared with mud, but it would hide his scent so that was fine. He'd already been lurking there for an hour, and he wished he had something to do, but distracting himself would... well, distract him, and just because the zombies instinctively avoided water didn't mean he was safe from having a walker trip and fall into the canal. He raised his head above the ridge and took a quick scan. Two of the guards (the ones on stands) had been replaced. The other three hadn't moved. There was no noise except the constant moaning and the occasional scream of a Feral in the distance, and of course the bored chatter of the guards. Kyle had been gone on errands a long time, and come back only recently. He checked his waterproof digital watch. Kyle’d been inside ten minutes.

There was the sound of a sliding metal door being hauled open and closed, then the sound of something heavy falling over the fence that bordered Rais's compound. The moaning grew louder and more insistent, and Crane peeked over to see the crowd of walkers shuffling toward whoever had been ejected. He couldn't see who it was through the crowd of bodies, but his suspicions were confirmed when a second later there was a spray of dried blood and a severed head rolling between all the stumbling legs.

“Yeah, fuck you too, asshole!” yelled a man with a clock-stopping American accent. “And you!” There was the sound of a solid kick connecting. “Fuck off! You smell!”

Yeah, that was Kyle. And he sounded okay.

He left the filthy, hole-ridden tarp where it was and slunk along the bottom of the canal, away from the fighting. He reached up, grabbed a walker's ankles, and pulled it into the ditch. It only took a second to snap its desiccated neck and start daubing his rubber poncho with blood and guts. He was doubly glad he was wearing the mask now.

Then he crawled out and did his best shamble down the street, closer to the train bridge. He was making his way up the side of the grassy embankment when there were footfalls behind him.

“Oh, look, another glorious day in plague-ridden Harran. Let's go sightseeing. What about that train? It looks so sight-see-able, what with the view of wrecked cars and bombed buildings and the scenic Derailment Vista. By the way, man, I'd appreciate you staying downwind. You really reek.”

He obligingly shifted to the back. “How did it go?”

“I can't understand a fucking word with that thing on your face.” A bit of hypocrisy on Kyle's part, since he was wearing that stupid painted thing.

He pulled up the gas mask as they reached the top of the first traincar.

“I ask—” He coughed briefly on the smell rising from his clothes and pinched his nose. “Ugh, fuck. I asked how it went.”

“It went fine. They’re doing something big in there, they’re loading up a bajillion vans with crates. But that’s tomorrow’s problem.” He reached into his bag and held up a small portable hard drive in a tough rubberized case. “You can tell none of Rais's men can climb, he didn't have shit guarding his office window except a shitty alarm and a hundred-foot drop. What wusses.”

“What’s on it?”

“That’s the interesting part. It’s a bunch of emails and memos from various people high up in the GRE. Phone recordings even. I skimmed through them while I was waiting for all the copies to delete. Rais has like, three backup hard drives. They’ve been seriously mismanaged and are hemorrhaging money, and they’re desperately doing everything they can to find a cure before they go bankrupt, including some super illegal shit.”

Crane smiled. “I like the sound of that.”

“The Ministry won’t allow them to retrieve samples of infected tissues, right? And they can’t send doctors _in_ because the Exclusion Zone is lethal. So they’re trying to piggyback off Zere and Camden, sending in private operatives to upload copies of their research, like Amir. They’ve smuggled out infected people, zombie tissue, zombies. They even took a volatile! And they did it all behind the Ministry’s back. That’s not just violating Harrani law, that’s a serious international crime.”

“No shit?”

“Shut up. Now Suleiman got ahold of these communications somehow and managed to unhash them, and I guess threatened to publicize everything. He wanted them to pull some strings and let him out of quarantine.”

“What happens if the GRE goes belly-up?”

“Well, I don’t know. The Ministry might get involved and you know them, they’ll just want to firebomb the city. Or the UN might get to decide what to do with us, which means we can kiss any hope of getting out of here before we’re sixty goodbye. Our best hope is that another big NGO steps in to take the GRE’s place. At least until we figure out how to cure this thing.”

Crane’s eyes drifted up to trace the outline of the roof of the railroad car back and forth. “That’s not acceptable. We won’t survive that long. Everyone’s scattered around in wherever they could get to when the chaos started. Us and Rais too. We need to clear a section of the city and gather everybody there, so we actually have space to garden and have a focal point for the airdrops. Rais needs to be on this too, he controls half the Slums.”

“I don’t think the Talons are gonna be willing to shack up with us. And Rais isn’t gonna want to release his fiefdoms to anybody. He’s got it pretty good in there.”

Crane’s eyes went back and forth a few times. “Then we leave. Pack up, head to Old Town across the bay. Everything died within days there. There might still be supplies.”

“How? The tunnels are all closed off.”

“No idea. I’m hoping Brecken does.”

Brecken planted his fists on the table. “You’re sure they’re close to a cure?” His voice was raw with hope.

Kyle shrugged uncomfortably. “That’s what they told _me_. Who knows what’s actually happening?”

Karim scratched the back of his neck and leaned around Brecken’s elbow. “We’re barely managing to stay afloat here as it is, Crane. My guards are worked half to death. How do you expect to escort all those scared, noisy people to Old Town? By street? What about the sick ones who can barely walk? Or the ones that are still in a coma? What about the _filth_ outside? The last flu outbreak took eighteen people.”

“I have no idea,” Crane admitted.

Jade Aldemir was on the couch, one arm bandaged and her clothing bloody. “It’s worth looking into, Brecken. I could lead some of the scouts into Old Town. Check out the older buildings like City Hall.”

“Harran University,” Crane put in.

“Exactly. I _wish_ they hadn’t turned Old Castle into a museum, that would have been perfect if it wasn’t forty percent glass panes now.”

Crane snapped his fingers excitedly. “Wait, wait. The museum is solar powered! We can take the panels before they turn off the electric grid.”

Kyle held up his hands. “Okay, one thing at a time.”

“Well, you two are the only ones actually from here,” said Brecken, flicking his wrist in an understated shrug. “If you say a building is secure against fucking zombies, I guess I have to believe you.”

Aldemir twisted on the couch to look at him. “The really old buildings in Harran date back to at least the Ottoman Empire. They’re built like glaciers. And no offense, Brecken, but the Tower was probably built in the seventies, and it’s crumbling already. What if the quarantine stays up for five years?”

The idea dropped on the room like a lead weight. Karim ran his hands through his hair, looking miserable, and Kyle shook his head. “Not gonna fucking happen.”

“But what if it does?” Aldemir insisted. “We _have_ to think about that. What if it’s ten? Fifteen? We won’t survive that long in the Tower. We just won’t. Crane’s certainly right that we’d be in a better position to trade with the Countryside from Old Town. It’s much more centralized.”

“The Countryside?” asked Kyle.

“They have grain farms, and probably still livestock,” said Crane. “The military was based there before the Flood, but the Countryside was put under quarantine too when the infected pushed through our defenses. I don’t know what happened after that, I was already in that apartment by then. The one I told you about.”

“If I have to live here three more months I’m gonna shoot myself,” said Karim. “Fuck five _years_. I’d rather be shot by the Ministry trying to escape.”

“Are you infected, Karim?” asked Kyle.

“No. I still test clean.”

“Then maybe we can get you out. We might be able to evacuate some people, if the GRE knows where they are.” Kyle gave Crane a significant glance.

“Oh, those bastards know,” said Brecken bitterly. “Their planes fly right past. It’s not as though we have a fifteen-meter sign on the side or anything. We even lean out the windows sometimes and flip them off.”

Aldemir’s radio crackled.

“Yes. What do you mean? What the fuck? Where are they going?” She leaned forward and listened hard for a few minutes. She threw the radio down onto the coffee table. “That was Signals. Some of the workers up at the workshop says that they’re seeing a train of Rais’s vans going toward the coast.”

“I fixed some of the towers around the Slums today,” Kyle offered. “Has it helped at all?”

“That was you? Everything’s clear as a bell. Still can’t get anything from outside the Zone, but the runners can chatter clear across the Slums now.”

Kyle pulled out his cell phone. “Did the radio towers have cell service attached? I have one bar. Oh man, I can get Wi-Fi!”

Instantly everyone pulled out their phones. Crane, not having one anymore, leaned a little awkwardly on the table.

“Good job, Kyle.” Brecken was staring down at his phone. “Amazing fucking job.” The sounds of rapid texting filled the room.

Kyle paused halfway through a message to his sister. “SHIT!” He gasped and clapped a hand to his mouth as the realization hit him in a shockwave. “Crane! THE FILE! He already published the file!” He slumped forward with his head in his hands. “Oh, I fucked up, guys. I fucked up so bad.”

“What file’s this?” asked Aldemir sharply.

“This… bunch of internal GRE blackmail files that Rais has. He wants them to airlift him out.”

Karim made a noise, then grimaced and turned away when they all looked at him. “Nothing. It’s nothing. Most of Rais’s inner circle knew about it. He’s been in negotiations with the Ministry of Defense for months. Then he stopped talking about it. I guess this was his workaround.”

“You’re not pissed?” said Brecken. “If I tried that, I wouldn’t make it five steps to the roof before I got killed with a brick. They’d have every right, too.”

“It’s not himself Rais is trying to get out. He now lives in a world where he can mutilate and kill without consequences, why would he ever want to leave? Besides, his blood is contaminated with nightmare spit. There’s every probability he will become one of them if he ever misses a dose of Antizin. The GRE wouldn’t touch him. It’s his little brother, Hassan. Kadir—”

Karim stopped and chuckled at his mistake.

“ _Rais_ pulled every string he could during the first few days of the outbreak to get his brother on a chopper. The GRE should have done it, too. His name was on the sick and disabled list. But somehow they dropped the ball, and he’s been here through the whole thing. I would spend a lot of time with him, since all I had to do was work the radio. He says his room smells like zombie, no matter how well he tries to air it out.”

“What happened to him?” asked Kyle.

“Skiing accident. He might have even made the next Winter Games, if he’d been in a hospital these last three months. Now, his career is probably ruined. He might even be wheelchair-bound for the rest of his life. _But_ , he is alive. And miraculously, his blood is clean.”

“I would do _anything_ to get Rahim out of this hell,” said Aldemir softly, staring out the balcony at the skyline. She smoothed back her dreadlocks. “Anything. I’d blackmail the GRE too.”

“Who wouldn’t?” said Crane.

Brecken stared at the table. “I’m so sorry. God, I’m so, so sorry that I can’t get you all out of here right now. Most days, I go through it and it’s almost normal, but every now and then when I step outside and I get hit by the _stink_ of them, and it’s just…” He gestured shapelessly. “I even feel sorry for Rais. God, how is that possible?”

“We’d be dead without you, Brecken,” said Aldemir firmly. “I certainly didn’t know how to vault cars when I met you.”

Brecken laughed, a shiny, brittle sound. “Maybe Crane’s right. Maybe things will be safer in the midtown. What are the buildings like?”

Aldemir finished retying her hair. “Taller. Much taller. There are office buildings and swanky high-rises there. Getting between them will be much more dangerous for us, but impossible for the zombies. And the grid’s much more powerful. They might still have running water and gas.”

Brecken rubbed his eyes. “Will it be cleaner there? Because we’re running out of bleach.”

“I can’t promise that. But we won’t have these sewage culverts and other people’s rotting garbage everywhere. Remember the gigantic trash purge?”

Everyone except Kyle nodded.

“I had forgotten that,” said Karim. “Feels like another lifetime. I don’t even remember what I was doing. I was in the Business District for something and there were just trucks everywhere.”

“Alright. I guess we have some kind of plan. Karim, get the word out about the Internet. We’ll get it on shifts. Same parameters as always, one hour per floor, just like Net Night. Jade, go tomorrow with a team, take whatever you need from Storage. Try not to go anywhere… dark. I’ll contact Rais. Like it or not, he’s our neighbor. And he should hear it from me. Fuck, I need coffee before I talk to him. The Turkish stuff. Didn’t Rahim and Ilsa bring back a bunch of coffee?”

“Kilos of it. The smell’s gonna be amazing.”

Brecken groaned. “Oh, I can’t _wait_.” He pointed at Kyle and Crane. “You two… fuckers. I need you to help do a run of all the other big settlements and scope them out for me. We haven’t had radio contact with any of them for a week. Tell me how many people are still left, and how they’re doing on supplies. The fishing village and the pier camp are gonna be a pain because they hate strangers, but you’re going to be hitting the settlements around Wheelstation. Rais has them scared shitless. Not that I blame them. Their barricades are basically just piles of trash.”

Karim stood and stretched. “I realize that this is rowing against the current here, but for the sake of it I’m going to be obstructive. Rais didn’t like that much either, but he respected me enough to listen to my opinion. We already have half the neighborhood clear enough to drive through, and we’re well set up with traps. Why not just sit here for the next, please God, only a few more weeks, and just continue frying every zombie that walks through?”

“Well, I couldn’t sleep again last night because of those things screaming, so I started doing some maths.” Brecken picked up a little spiral notebook, opened to a page, and handed it over.

Karim squinted at it. “Two point five million? Is that the number of zombies?”

“No, that’s what Harran’s population was before the outbreak. Tack about a million on top of that from tourists from the Global Games. Almost two thirds of the city was evacuated to the Business District before they got infected,” he jerked his thumb in the direction of the Wall, “so they’re fine. Those of us who remain…” he pulled out his phone and opened the calculator app.

“One million fifty thousand,” said Aldemir.

“That. I doubt at this junction that there are three _hundred_ people still alive in the Slums. Less in midtown because that’s where the outbreak began. Assume there’s five hundred people left in the whole of the Exclusion Zone. Subtract half a million or so from people who died to other things. It’s wild guessing, I don’t exactly have the statistical data in front of me.”

Aldemir interrupted the clicks of his phone app again. “One million, forty-nine thousand, five hundred.”

Like an omen, everyone’s watches went off, and instinctively they all moved away from the windows. Karim hit the lights, and the room was bathed in shadow. Brecken paced agitatedly, the glow of his watch and the tiny reflection of the skyline off his eyes tracing his motions.

“We’re— we’re dead, okay? We’re all infected, there’s no water, we’re starving and scared, we’re dying to the common fucking cold, the outside world has forgotten about us, and we are _dead_ unless something changes. So we can’t afford to just sit here, and I’ve been up here all day trying to see a way out. If this is our best bet, then I’m willing to sacrifice everything to make it happen. I don’t see that there’s another choice.”

“We’re here with you, Brecken,” said Aldemir.

“Yeah, I know. Just get back safe, you hear?” His words were punctuated by the first few cries of Volatiles down below. “Meeting’s adjourned, get out, you all have places to be.”

He found Kyle on the construction crane after 3 am shift, staring out at the skyline. Harran was dead except for a few fires, scattered working streetlights, and the blue glow of safezones. The blackness was enclosed by a harsh ring of fluorescents topping the Wall, mounted above the razor wire. Although you couldn’t see the soldiers, occasional glimmers marked their flashlights moving around on the watchtowers. Behind them was a protective buffer of evacuated city blocks. But after that, the lights in the Business District rose like a utopia.

He sat down and pointed at a pair of red and white stripes. “I can see traffic on the highway.”

Kyle sounded teary. “All those people just living their lives. Writing memos, worrying about the mortgage. They’re so _close_.” He reached out to the lights as though to touch them.

Crane crossed his legs. “I hate them. What are they doing for us?”

“How are they so far away? They’re right there. They’re right there! The world is going on out there, and we’re stuck in here! How long have I been here?”

“Kyle, you’ve been here a week.”

“I don’t remember the last thing I ate before the quarantine. I don’t remember what I was doing.”

Crane pointed in the direction of the water. “I remember before. There was a café right down there. The coffee was shitty, but their pastries were really good. I was eating some halva when I got the call.”

“Do you wanna go there?” Kyle asked hesitantly. “See if there’s anything left inside?”

“Three-month-old halva? No thanks. I like my teeth.”

“What was the first thing that you remember about it starting? I saw it on social media and on the news, but…”

“I remember the smell of fire. People were panicking and things were burning down. It would wake me up at night. What about you?”

Kyle nodded. “The stench of dead bodies. I could smell it as soon as I jumped from the plane. It was so bad. I thought people were exaggerating.”

“The smell doesn’t bother me so much as the flies. I’ve seen entire streets _boiling_ with flies. You can’t even see the zombies, there’s just the reek and this cloud of vermin that goes five feet above their heads.” Crane made a sound of deep disgust. “I can’t stand maggots. Burn all of them.”

“That’s disgusting. Where did you find maggots?”

“Oh, in the bottom of the dog’s food. Under the dead rats I’d find under the porch. The Slums is a dirty place, especially in the summer. All that garbage on the street from right before the Flood means the rat population skyrocketed in just a couple weeks. A whole lot fewer now, now that there aren’t any humans to drop simit. Oh damn, I miss simit.”

Kyle shifted. “I’m so tired, all the time. I can barely bother to stand. My stomach’s a pit. I literally can’t stop thinking about food. I just can’t stop.”

“I’ve gone days without food before.” Crane closed his eyes and held them there. “But I’ve never starved before. I can feel the difference. I can feel my body eating away at itself. I’m losing muscle mass.”

“After a _week_?”

“Kyle. I’ve been like this for months. It’s why I’m slow and can’t open my own jars. You’re the healthiest person in the Tower, I promise.”

Kyle turned and stared at his profile, feeling suddenly much colder. “Are you going to die?”

Crane gazed at the far-off lights. “That’s a pretty stupid question in the Quarantine Zone.”

“Are you going to die soon?”

“What are you, a child?” he snapped. Then he sighed. “I don’t know. I’m probably gonna have a bad fall or not climb away from a zombie fast enough before the hunger gets the chance. I might also just slip into a coma and turn. Once your immune system gets low enough, the Antizin can’t keep you alive.”

“You _sure_ you don’t want that halva?”

“Kyle, that was a joke. That place has been gutted. Every building that could possibly have food was ransacked months ago.”

“Then what have we been eating?”

“The stuff that the looters dropped, or that everyone died before they could reach. Any place that’s chock full of biters is a good candidate for untouched food, really. That’s why only Brecken’s and Aldemir’s vanguards can do food runs. Or the Revenant, if you can convince him. Sometimes the airdrops have food, but the weight ratio is terribly expensive.”

“So what Brecken said earlier. We’re fucked?”

“We’ve always been fucked. It’s just a matter of time.”

Kyle looked at him again. For the first time he realized there was a boniness around his jaw and cheeks. There were curving dents spaced down his fingernails like tree rings. His body was hunched around his stomach, like its need was slowly, unstoppably trying to digest him.

Kyle turned away. “I’m sorry I screwed you over. I’d get you out of here if I could.”

A smile rose at the tips of his whitened mouth. Crane flicked his fist in Kyle’s direction, the tip of his thumb stuck out between his fingers. “Fuck you. I’d have abandoned you in a second.”

“Would you really?”

Crane shrugged. “As far as you know.”

“I’m sorry about how I broke the gay thing to you, um, before.” He couldn’t remember how long ago it had been now. “I honestly wasn’t thinking about it too hard and just thought it was funny. You know, like sitcom-awkward, us already in bed together. In hindsight, it was really creepy and I’m sorry I did it like that.”

“Are you apologizing right now because you’re wondering to yourself if I’m going to wake up tomorrow?”

“A little.”

“Don’t worry about it. Every struggle against trauma comes down to one thing: how badly do you want to live? That’s why the zombies never really bothered me. I mean, I’d seen ‘em in movies, and weird shit happens every day. I want to live, Kyle. I can’t describe how much I want it. It makes me choke on it, it makes every step like I’m punching the thing that hurt me. I might slow down, but I’m never gonna fucking stop. Not until I get out of here.”

He stood up, and Kyle did too. “I wish I could show people what’s happening here. Something to bring people’s attention back. How do you do those things?”

“Talk to the UN. Or the Ministry. Or post something and pray it goes viral somehow, and that the influx of cash is somehow enough to knock us out of this.”

“And what are the chances of any of that working?” Crane asked dully.

“You won’t like them,” Kyle admitted.

“Why won’t people _do_ anything?” Crane asked as they clambered back onto the roof.

Kyle sighed. “Because people aren’t good or bad, they’re just people. Do you think we’ll find food tomorrow?”

“The fishing village might have stuff to trade. Last I heard, this was a good year for fishing. Most people will still take money, but they’re the ones assuming the economy will come back so that the money will mean something.” They both glanced back at the business district, then let themselves down the ramps and headed inside. “The others will take Antizin or batteries.”

“Wait. Before we go to bed, I downloaded a video I want you to see.”

“Ohhh god. What is it?”

“Solid Snake in a cardboard box. Just, trust me.”

His chair had been taken for Medical weeks ago. Brecken dropped heavily onto the desk and put a hand to his old broken rib as it twinged. His shorn hair felt like horse bristles; he couldn’t even stand to touch it anymore. He sipped his coffee. God, that was good.

He swallowed and grunted a little as his temperature continued to creep up. He had been delaying his next Antizin shot again, and he was starting to feel the effects. So stupid, being afraid of needles at a time like this.

There was a note under the cup. It said, _To All Tower Inhabitants:_ _Coffee is a diuretic. It is not a substitute for water. You cannot make nonpotable water drinkable by using it to make coffee._

“Thanks, Doctor,” he said, and crumpled up the note and tossed it at the trashcan. Fifteen points.

He pulled the walkie out of its cradle as he took another hit, and unwillingly pressed the Speak button.

“Rais. Rais, it’s Brecken. Do you copy?”

He pushed the Listen button and waited. Usually, it took up to fifteen minutes for the great king of the Den to deign to respond.

A Volatile howled below. It sounded like it had found someone. There was the faint sounds of last shift work from lower in the Tower, and under it, the creaking of the building in the wind.

A click. “Brecken.”

“Hello, Rais.” His hands had begun shaking from the caffeine. “I hope you’re doing well.”

“Better than you, by the sound of it. I’ve heard that hairline fracture in men’s voices before.” His voice was rough and cold like unpolished marble.

He took a brief moment to replay the conversations he’d had with 102. He wasn’t a good liar, and getting a single detail wrong here might mean full-out war across the Slums. “I wanted to thank you for being so considerate to Aldemir’s representative the other day. You indicated that you’d be interested in perhaps coming to a truce?”

“I had been. A wise man knows when to cut his losses. In case your little birds missed it, we in fact departed from the Slums today, permanently. It’s yours now, if you can keep it.”

“Oh?” Brecken’s grip tightened on the mug handle. His mind raced, trying to guess if that was some kind of metaphor. For all he knew, Rais had forced his people to drive themselves into the ocean. “Where did you go?”

There was a long silence.

“Rais. Where did you go?”

“To the Prison.” There was a hoarse cough, half-obscured by Rais releasing the Speak button. “It is going to take some time to clear out, of course. But it will be a fortress in which we can wait out the infection. If I turn, a cell will contain me easily. I regret to say that we have no more room. Most of my soldiers brought their families with them.”

“Wha— How did you get there?”

“By boat, of course. Colonel Taner knows who I am. We have been guaranteed a supply of airdrops on the helicopter pad.”

“Well, this is… Surprising. Why did you leave?”

“I had no more reason to remain there.” Rais’s voice had become oddly choppy. “The GRE saw to that.”

It hit Brecken like a punch to the stomach. His brother must be dead. John flashed before his eyes again, runner’s uniform askew, reaching for him from the crumpled car. _Harris_ … _Flag someone down_ …

“Rais—”

“You read the files, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Then you know. They think that they can make their own laws, without regard for the survival of Harran. They do not realize that once you overturn the chessboard, your enemy is not bound by any laws either. Are you listening, Brecken?”

“Yes, Rais. I’m listening.”

“I imagine that now that I am gone, you will attempt to make some kind of deal with the GRE, since the Defense Ministry cares nothing for you. They will give you nothing willingly. The obvious fake bird they have sent into your Tower can be your leverage. There’s nothing you can do to smear their reputation further, but you can threaten to kill him, as you’ve killed the others. Take it from me that his death would be the end of their relationship with the company that manufactures Antizin. The GRE would do anything in the world to keep him alive.”

Brecken finished his coffee. “I don’t want to do that.”

“I’m afraid you must. They won’t keep their promises otherwise.”

“I’ll _make_ them.”

“You would rise considerably in my estimation if you did. The alternative is that the Ministry loses patience and turns you all to ash. In the meantime, I think this will be our last call, for a while. Goodbye, Brecken.”

“Goodbye, Rais.”

He set the talkie back in its charger.

At the moment, all he really felt was a sense of freedom. This would be a clean break, however it went. If he pulled fifteen people off gardening and put them on Internal Organization duty, they could be ready to move within two days. There wasn’t much in the Tower that was actually valuable. He looked at the trash still scattered around Headquarters, and his brain ached. He couldn’t think in this mess. Looked like it might be another all-nighter.

He picked up the radio. “Hey, Rahim? When you come up, would you bring me another coffee on your way?”


End file.
